Process of manufacturing shoes.



J. CAVANAGH.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING SHOES.

APPLICATION man SEPT-25.19%.

l ggg gww Patented June 12, 1917.

JAMES CA'VANAGH, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO UNITED SHOE MACHINERY COMPANY, OF PATERSON, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF new ERSEY.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING SHOES.

Patented June 12, 1917.

Original application filed September 30, 1914, Serial No. 864,274. Divided and this application filed September 25, 1915.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, JAMES CAVANAGH, a citizen of the United States, residing at Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain Improvements in Processes of Manufacturing Shoes, of which the following description, in connection .with the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like reference characters on the drawings indicating like parts in the several figures. p

This invention relates to the manufacture of shoes and has for its object to effect an economy and an improvement in this field. The invention consists in a novel method of manufacturing shoes. In womens light shoes for indoor and dress wear, chiefly, but not exclusively, turn shoes, there have been used for many years heels having body portions consisting of wood and covered with leather or other material. These covered heels are produced as a distinct branch of the trade, the wooden body portions being out to shape and the covering of sheet material being applied usually with paste or glue over the periphery of the heel and lapped inwardly over the seat face of the heel so that no portion of the wooden body shall remain exposed which will. be visible after the heel has been attached. The usual practice has been to use a covering of leather or other material which will harmonize with the material of the shoe and for this purpose kid, leather, andsatin and other cloths have most commonly been employed, although sheet rubber and celluloid have been proposed as has also enamel which has been baked on the heel.

Serial No. 52,645.

Enamel covered heels are open to serious objections which will be at once apparent.

These conditions of high cost and lack of durability of finish have restricted the use of wood heels within very narrow limits so that it is estimated that only a small fraction of a per cent. of the shoes made are provided with wood heels.

One of the apparently permanent standards of style in footwear is that the heel and the vamp shall appear to consist of material of similar nature. Thus a black shoe is furnished with a black heel and if the vamp is of enamel leather the heel is polished, while if the vamp has a dull finish the heel is given a dull surface; tan shoes have tan heels and rubber heels are colored and finished to resemble the appropriate appearance of a leather heel for which they are substituted.

I have discovered a method of producing a wood heel which satisfies the above standard-as-perfectly as does the employment of heels made entirely of leather, and which has the very' important commercial advantages of great economy. Moreover its product possesses as high a degree of durability as is found in leather heels.

This method comprises smoothing a wood heel to produce a soft satin-like surface, applying a material which binds the wood fibers together, and subjecting the heel to rubbin pressure and heat to Work said material into the surface.

In the accompanying drawing which illustrates several steps of my novel process:

Figure 1 shows a sectional view of a wooden heel having a leather toplift;

Fig. 2 shows the smoothing step of my novel method;

Fig. 3 illustrates the hot iron rubbing step of my novel method, and

'Fig. 4 shows the finished heel.

In practising my novel method an unfinished wood heel, preferably of well seasoned,

fine grained, hard wood, such as the best quality of maple, is taken by the shoe manufacturer as it comes from the wood working machinery of the wood heel manufacturer and attached to a shoe by nailing. According to the commonest practice this heel will have a leather toplift as shown in Fig. 1. The heel is then trimmed to the contour of the shoe, if necessary, to adapt that particular heel to the shoe of which it is to be a part. This step has not been possible here-.

tofore because the heels were covered before being attached in order that the covering could be lapped over the upper edge of the heel and its edge hidden between the seat face of the-shoe and the shoe bottom. After the heel has been attached and satisfactorily shaped, the heel is smoothed. This operation ,in the case of heels for the best quality of shoes consists of two steps. The heel is first scoured with a coarse paper, for instance, No. 60 and this step is followed by a-scourin with a very fine paper, as for instance, f" 0.150.

Wood heels, as supplied by the wood heel manufacturer, have the grain of the wood running parallel to the tread face of the heel as is clearly shown in Fig. 1. It is clear, therefore, that the front and rear surfaces or ends of the heel cut more or less sharply across the Wood fibers while the lateral surfaces of the heel are out much more nearly along the wood fibers. It is of course necessary that the back and the sides of the fini'shed heel shall be of uniform appearance in order to reach the standard set by heels made entirely of leather and it is clear that the bringing or the back and sides of the heel to this uniform condition presents a different problem because of the radically different relations of the wood fibers to the surfaces at the sides and back of the heel. I have discovered a method of condensing these dissimilarly situated fibers into a compact surface uniformly on all parts of the periphery ofthe heel. The first step in this process consists in painting the periphery of the heel with a filler or thin solution of anilin dye. The exact composition of this filler may vary according to the judgment of the manufacturer. The periphery of the heel is then rubbed with smooth paper. After this operation the fibers in' the periphery ofthe heel are found to be matted into a black or a suitable anilin dye.

"dense homogeneous surface all around the heel which is not deleteriously affected by the subsequent steps of my finishing process.

This rubbing operation may be performed in the same manner as the scouring operation (see Fig. 2) except that smooth paper (which may be a worn out piece of abrasive paper turned over with its smooth side out-- ermost) is. used. After this smoothing operation the heel, in the case of the'black shoe, is .coated with any suitable blacking or, in the case of a tan or russet shoe, with a stain'. These substances are made of carnaubawax, castile soap, shellac and borax boiled and dissolved in water, and colored with lamp- Cheaper blackings and stains are obtainable, WhlCll do 1not contain carnauba wax as a constituen After the blacking or stain has dried thoroughly the heel is subjected in the presence of heat to rubbing pressure. During this operation carnauba wax in a melted condition willbe applied to the heel in case none has already been applied in the blacking, and in the best quality of shoes carnauba wax may be applied during the rubbing operation even if the blacking already used contains this material. The heat melts the wax and the rubbing pressure appears to: cause it to bind firmly togetherthe wood fibers on the sides and back of the heel and to produce a continuous, hard, uniform surface identical in characteristics at the sides and back of the heel and capable of taking a surface finish which may vary from a dull finish to match adull leather vamp or a cloth fabric to a high gloss to match. a atin practising this invention the bestresults have beenobtained by me from a combined beating and rubbing action which seems to drive the heated wax into the surface with good efiect, this action being produced by an irregular surfaced rubbing'iron, 'such as,

for instance, that shown in the patent to Pease, No. 959,880, May 31, 1910, but of course being capable of being produced by hand tools. In cases where wax is to be applied during this operation, the apparatus shown in the patent to Pease, No. 1,197,849, granted Sept. 12, 1916, may be used to good advantage. It is shown in Fig. 3 and will be briefly described. The rotary tool is shown at 10 and is substantially the same as the tool shown in the Pease patent cited. The wax applying wheel 11 runs in contact with the face of the tool 10, and dips into the melted wax reservoir 12. The members 11, 12 are kept suitably heated, and the waxstick 13, which rests against the wheel 11 is. gradually melted to keeprup the supply of wax in the reservoir 12. he brush 14 moves back and forth parallel'to the axis of the tool, and spreads over it the wax deposited by the applying wheel 11. The shield 15 catches the liquid wax that is-thrown ofl from the tool 10, and the gutters 16 conduct it'b'ack to the wheel 11 and reservoir 12. This apparatus melts the wax and applies it hot and with pressure.

After the uniform surface appearance has been produced as described, the desired superficial luster is produced by treatment.

with materials selected according to theleathers and a soft rag finishing roll to produce a' gloss to match enameled leathers; It is possible to omit some of the described steps in my process in case a cheaper article is desired and still to produce a heel which will compare favorably with cheaper grades of heels made entirely of leather. For instance, .the fine grained paper scouring step may be omitted and I have found also that the filling step may be omitted Without with precision to it and can be smoothed and in all respects finished with proper relation to the other portions of the particular shoe of which it is to be a part and this work can be done under the direction of a shoe manufacturer, instead of in the heel factory, having due regard to the shoe to which it is' to become attached. While there are advantages as above suggested in attachin the heel to the shoe before the heel is smoot ed, it is within my invention, in its broader aspects, to defer attaching the heel until one or all of the steps in the finishing operation have been performed. The finish produced on wood heels by my novel method is entirely durable, being substantially unaffected by moisture or the action of the atmosphere.

One of the exceedingly valuable characteristics of my method is that the wood heel produced has all the desirable features and appearance of a leather heel. As has been stated above, the heel will probably have a leather toplift. In case it is desired that the top lift have the same appearance as the re mainder of the heel, as is the generalpractice, I have found that the incidental treat-- ment of the leather toplift simultaneously with the wooden heel, in the ractice of my novel method, will produce a urnished sur face upon the periphery of the toplift which is indistinguishable from that obtained on the sides and back of the heel. I have found that the wax fills any interstice between the wood and leather portions of the heel and h'at'the periphery of the entire heel have obtained the best results by applying the carnauba wax first inthe blacking or stain and then applying additional wax while treating the wood heel with heat and pressure, some of the advantages of this invention may be obtained by the application of the carnauba wax at one time only, either in the blacking or staining alone or entirely after the blacking or staining operation.

While the time at which the wax is applied to the Wood heels admits of variation, it appears to be essential, in order to obtain on wood heels a finish which is satisfactory under the conditions of use to which these heels are subjected, to work the carnauba wax into the surface of the heel by heat and pressure, preferably rubbing pressure by means of a heated instrument, after which the desired surface appearance can be produced and thereafter reproduced whenever the heel requires cleaning during the wear of the shoe.

The cost of finishing wood heels in accordance with this invention is less than onequarter that of covering wood heels and is low enough to make very profitable the substitution of the heel produced by this method in place of leather heels on many shoes.

The novel "heel herein disclosed as produced by the method of my invention is not herein claimed but forms the subject matter of my co-pending application Serial N 0. 864,274, filed September 30, 1914, of which the present application is a division.

Having explained and described the best way now known to me of practising my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States 1. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in attaching to a shoe an unfinished wood heel having its fibers running substantially parallel to the tread face of the heel, smoothing the heel to produce a satin-like surface on the wood, coloring the periphery of the heel with a substance containing a material adapted to.

applying to the smooth surface a coloring matter in which'is incorporated a wax, softening the wax by heat and forcing it into the surface of the heel by rubbing pressure and polishing the heel.

' 3. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in attaching to a shoe an unfinished wood heel having its fibers running substantially parallel to the tread face of the heel, smoothing the periphery of the heel, applying to theperiphery of the heel a wax which is adapted to bind together the wood fibers in the surface of the heel, softening the wax by heat and forcing it. into the surface of the heel by rub'-" bing pressure.

4. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in attaching to a shoe an unfinished wood heel with the fibers running substantially parallel to the tread face, smoothing the heel, spreading over the entire periphery of the heel a coloring material containing oarnauba wax, drying the coat-of coloring matter, rubbing the colored and wax-coated surface and applying thereon additional melted carnauba wax which is maintained in melted condition while being applied to the heel by the rub bing means and treating the colored and wax-coated surface of the heel to produce a surface appearance on the wood harmonizing with that of a shoe vamp.

5. That improvement in methods of ma ing shoes which consists in attaching to a shoe an unfinished wood heel having its fibers substantially parallel to the tread face of the heel, smoothing the heel, spreading over the periphery of the heel a liquid coloring matter, drying the coating of liquid coloring matter, rubbing the colored surface and applying carnauba wax with an instrument heated to a temperature sufficient to maintain wax in melted condition on the surface being rubbed, and then rubbing the wax to produce a surface appearance of more or less luster on the wood to harmonize with that of the shoe vamp with which the heel is to be used.

6. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in attaching to a shoe an unfinished wood heel having 'its fibers running substantially parallel to the tread face of the heel, smoothing the same by rubbing it with smooth paper, applying carnauba'wax in melted condition to the periphery of the heel and rubbing the wax surface with an iron heated to a temperature sufficient to maintain the wax in melted condition on the surface, whereby the superficial fibers are united in a smooth surface of uniform characteristics.

7. That improvement in methods of making shoes which consists in attaching to the shoe an unfinished wood heel having its fibers running substantially parallel to the tread face of the heel, smoothing the periphery of the heel, applying a material adapted to bind together the wood fibers in the periphery of the heel, and rubbing the periphery with a heated iron, whereby the cross-grained peripheral surface of the heel is made similar in appearance th the straight grained peripheral surface thereof.

8. That improvement in methods of making shoes which comprises fitting a leather toplift to an unfinished wood heel having its fibers running substantially'parallel to the tread face of the heel, attaching the same to a shoe, smoothing the periphery of the heel thus produced, applying to it a substance adapted to bind together the wood fibers in the peripheryof the heel and softening the said substance by heat under rubbing pressure whereby the substance is inte-- grally incorporated with the peripheral portion of the heel, and a surface produced in which the cross-grained, straight-grained and leather portions of the heel periphery are substantially indistinguishable.-

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.v

JAMES CAVANAGH. 

